‘Wa size does not determine cricket fitness’: Gavaskar defends Prithvi Shaw | Cricket News

India batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has come out in defence of Mumbai batter Prithvi Shaw, who was omitted from the team’s Ranji Trophy squad due to fitness concerns.
The out-of-favour India batter was dropped from the defending Ranji Trophy champions’ squad for their third-round match against Tripura. The Indian Express had reported that Shaw was asked the Mumbai Cricket Association selectors to follow two weeks of a fitness programme prepared MCA trainers.
The team management had informed MCA that Shaw’s body contains 35 per cent fat and he needs rigorous training before he gets back into the side.
The 24-year-old Shaw has had a poor start to his domestic season, scoring 59 runs in the first two Ranji Trophy games. Shaw had struck a second-inning 76 in Mumbai’s season-opening Irani Cup win in Lucknow before facing a slump.
However, Gavaskar defended Shaw, arguing that wa size isn’t the only indicator of cricketing fitness. He drew parallels between Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan, who recently scored his maiden Test hundred against New Zealand in Bengaluru.
“There have been mixed reports about his omission from the Ranji team. If it’s about his attitude, approach and discipline, then it’s understandable, but hopefully it is nothing to do with his weight as one report seems to have suggested,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day.
“That report suggested that he had 35 per cent more body fat. We have seen in the previous Test in Bengaluru how another player Sarfaraz Khan, whose weight and shape have also been discussed in the public domain, played a scintillating innings of 150, showing that it is not the shape or the size of your wa that determines cricket fitness,” Gavaskar added.
“It’s whether you can score 150-plus runs and that too bat for a whole day or bowl 20-plus overs in a day. That should be the only criteria of a player’s fitness. the way, how many players with zero per cent or minimal body fat have scored 379 like Prithvi Shaw? I rest my case about fitness,” Gavaskar remarked.
Shaw last featured in a Test for India in 2020. Shaw has struck four hundreds in the last three Ranji Trophy seasons, including a record-breaking 379 against Assam in the 2022-23 edition, the highest score a Mumbai batter in the tournament.